Archives
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ServerBeach now has AMD 64-Bit servers!
NOTE: ServerBeach may have 64-bit servers, but they are not yet running on Windows Server 2003 x64, which means they are not running at their full potential. They were also very rude to me when I confronted them about the issue. I would not recommend buying their 64-bit servers at this time, it would just be a waste of money.
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CodeSmith Rocks!
I've been working on building a really great web application using ASP.NET 2.0 over the past three months, and I needed a really great tool to make building the site easier. I tested a bunch of other tools (though I won't name them cause I'll get flamed), and I just wasn't satisfied. Not wanting to have to write any more code than I had to, I wanted to be able to design a platform that would allow me to easily change things as the requirements got more complex.
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OT: The End of a Very Long Day...
I've been relatively quiet the past few months... in case some of you were wondering, here's why.
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Tracking Collection Changes: Introducing SmartList<T>
Yesterday, I posted about needing to be able to track changes to generic collections. I've been diving really hard-core into CodeSmith, and right now I'm working on a set of templates that will generate an entire provider model-based website architecture from a set of database tables.
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Tracking Changes to Generic Collections
I'm writing an app that makes heavy use of Generic collections, and I'm needing to keep track of objects that are added or deleted. Is there a built-in object that supports this already? I'm about 3/4 of the way finished with my own inherited class that does the trick, but I wanted to throw it out there, in case I'm wasting my time. Thanks guys!
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VSTS Hosting
Anyone hear of any firms doing it yet? If not, someone should be. I'd sign up for sure.
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New Direction for the MSBuild Toolkit
Microsoft officially announced today that they will unofficially support MSBuild compiling to the .NET Framework 1.1. Called MSBee (the MSBuild Everett Environment), this tool will consist of new .targets files and MSBuild Tasks to round out the feature set that I had been supporting with previous versions of my kit.
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New MSBuild Toolkit Coming Soon
For everyone that's been asking, don't install the last build on ANY version of VS2005 other than Beta 2. I'm working on a new version for the RTM version that handles Targets much differently. The only problem is, the MSBuild team refactored the MSBuild APIs, which they said were going to help. It didn't even come close. The RTM version actually has less of the functionality that I needed exposed as public methods, not more. So right now I'm trying to set a gameplan for how best to address it (separate API enhancement that others can use, private inheritance, helper methods... etc) and then I'll be able to wrap it up.
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Run the ASP.NET 2.0 Development Server From Any Folder
As I blogged about yesterday, I came up with a way to start up the web server that comes with Visual Studio 2005 by right-clicking on the folder you want to serve. Chris Frazier left some great feedback, along with Daniel Fisher.
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"ASP.NET 2.0 Web Server Here" Shell Extension
I've been doing some web development work again lately, and I haven't wanted to screw with setting up IIS on my virtual machine. The .NET Framework 2.0 comes with a built-in webserver, based on the old Cassini web server. So I wanted to be able to easily set up any directory to have its contents served up on an as-needed basis. The result is an addition to the Windows Explorer right-click menu, as shown below:
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MSBuild Toolkit for Web Projects? It Might Happen.
If what Paul says is true, then I will be able to update my MSBuild Toolkit to handle compiling web projects to .NET 1.1
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ASP.NET "Atlas" - A Reason To Be Excited About The Web Again
A while back I posted about how I was disappointed with web development of late, and that I thought WinFX was going to be the way to go for applications from here on out. I heard about this "Atlas" stuff, and I was like "Whatever, AJAX is just a fad."
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PDC Hotel Sharing
Well. it's official. I'm headed to PDC again this year. Once again, I'm looking to make the trip as inexpensive as humanly possible, since I don't have any big corporation covering my costs. Anyone interested in splitting the costs of the hotel room w/ me? If so, please use the contact form to drop me a line. Thanks!
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In Case You Missed It...
I've been writing pretty fast and furious this week. Paul Thurrott really jumped the shark this week, and I've been trying to take the opportunity to open up a much larger debate about where we're going as an industry. Since it starts with web standards, I thought I'd link to it over here.
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WinForms 2.0: Still the Bastard Child of .NET Development
You know, there are some great new WinForms controls in .NET 2.0. It's obvious that Microsoft has spent a lot of time making WinForms better than it was in 1.X. But having spent the last several days building WinForms 2.0 demos, I'm extremely frustrated at the holes that are still all over the place. Maybe I'm just dumb and don't know what I'm doing, or maybe I really do need a college degree to do this stuff, but some things that are supposed to be intuitive are anything but. Just a few of my frustrations (please jump in if you know the answers to any of these):
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Changing My Focus in Software Development
Alright, it's official. As of today I'm no longer an ASP.NET MVP. My focus in software development has been shifting towards thick and smart client development for a while now, and I've been liking it a lot. Since the focus on LonghornBlogs.com is primarily on the Windows client, it's fitting that I'm now a Windows Client MVP instead. I'll still have a lot to contribute on the web development side, but I'm much happier with how everything fits together now.
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Known Issues with the MSBuild Toolkit for VS2005 RC
I've had a number of people give me great feedback on the MSBuild Toolkit I put out last week, and I wanted to note all the issues that I'm currently investigating.
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Uninstalling Visual Studio .NET 2003
Now that I've finally released a backwards-compatibility toolkit for MSBuild that I'm happy with, I'm taking a huge leap. I'm uninstalling Visual Studio .NET 2003 from my machine. I'm gonna see if it really is possible to do 100% of my .NET 1.1 work from Visual Studio 2005. Heh, the only way to find out is to try, right?
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Announcing the MSBuild Toolkit for Visual Studio 2005 RC!
This download has been removed. A new one will be posted in April 2006.
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'About Box' forms, the 'My' Namespace, and Class Libraries
In Visual Studio 2005, there is a built-in form called the "About Box". In a VB.NET project, you can add it to your application, and it will automatially display the info that you put in your AssemblyInfo file for the user. It's a pretty neat little addition that makes it just a little bit easier to build an app.
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IIS7 Exposed!
Rob Chartier and Plip say it's under NDA, but the Group Product Manager said it's ok to blog about, so if I'm wrong I'll take it down. Until then, I posted my review of IIS7 on LonghornBlogs.com.
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Thanks, George! (WARNING: STAR WARS SPOILERS)
I try not to post non-technical stuff here, but I'm still working on my new personal site, and my personal blog is down, so I thought I'd post it here.
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Disappointed with the MSBuild Object Model
I've been working pretty heavily with MSBuild over the last few days. Overall, I love the idea of a universal build engine, and I've been really excited to wrap up this idea that's been in my head ever since I saw it in August 2003.
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Adding Constructors to WinForms in .NET 2.0
Properties aren't always necessary for WinForms. Sometimes, I like to create alternate constructors and pass the information in through a parameter to a private member.
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CONFIRMED: XBOX 360 Backwards Compatible
Engadget confirms that Xbox 360 will be backwards compatible with most Xbox 1 games.
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MSDN Universal Gets Team Foundation Server 2005!!!
I just got this from Tim Heuer, the MS Developer Evangelist for Phoenix, and I thought I'd pass it along directly. It is really big news, IMO. Any emphasis is mine.
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New Passport Launch?
I went to sign into MyMSN tonight, and I was greeted with a completely different Passport sign-in page. Clicking through for more details brings me to a different Passport home page than I've seen before. When I signed in, I was asked a bunch of information about my birthdate, etc... and then I had to agree to a new terms of service.
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Robert and the Lockergome Talk Windows - Part 2
From "The Chris Pirillo Show":
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Robert & the Lockergome Talk x64 and Longhorn
From "The Chris Pirillo Show":
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The VS2005 SDK Needs A Lot Of Work
Have you ever tried to build an addin for Visual Studio? I'm working on one right now, and it's not much fun. I was hoping the VS2005 SDK (formerly VSIP) would be a bit more user-friendly than the previous versions... but I was wrong.
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You Heard Right - AdSense in RSS
Today I launched a project that has been a long time coming. LonghornBlogs.com launched new RSS feeds with AdSense ads embedded in each entry. I'm very please to be the first (and currently the only) site sanctioned by Google to test out this new product. I can't talk about much more than that, but you can read a bit more about it here.
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Chillin in Seattle
I'm in Seattle for WinHEC, and it's a gorgeous day out. I'm staying with Chris Pirillo while I'm here, having a great time so far. His house is as geeked out as one might expect. He's got a great view of the city... I just might have to get my personal blog back online so I can post some pictures.
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Need Help for MSBuild on .NET 1.1
Now that VS2005 Beta 2 is out, I'm wanting to move all of my development to the new platform. To be able to do that, I need to be able to build to .NET 1.1 The problem is, my MSBuild Compatibility Toolkit is incomplete at best. It needs a few things added, and I don't have the knowledge or the time to do it all myself. I'm looking for people who can help:
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I LOVE The VS2005 Class Designer
Microsoft has made a ton of killer improvements in the VS2005 Class Designer since Beta 1. Here's a roundup of my favorites:
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SourceSafe 2005 and Visual Studio .NET 2003
It IS possible to use the new SourceSafe 2005 Beta 2 from Visual Studio .NET 2003. There are a few things to remember, however:
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Taking the SourceSafe 2005 Plunge!
I'm on a quest to answer the question: "Can Visual Studio .NET 2003 work with Visual SourceSafe 2005?" I'm learning some cool things about SourceSafe along the way, so the next few posts will probably be SourceSafe related.
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Habemus Papam!
The cardinals in the Vatican have picked a pope in 2 days and 3 votes. They'll announce who it is in about 45 minutes.
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VS2005: Why keep forcing J#?
I fail to understand why Microsoft STILL insists on installing the J# runtime with Visual Studio. Why can't it be an option? Would it really be that hard to add a check box to the setup routine? I'm never going to use it. I'm never going to develop in it. Why do I have to go through the extra work of uninstalling it later?
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Judging the Imagine Cup 2005 Nationals
I'll be in Redmond May 20-21 to judge the Imagine Cup 2005 Finals. I judged the regional and state competitions for Arizona last year, and I had a blast, so this should be fun. Of course, I'll be blogging from the event, complete with pictures and an interview with the winners.
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ZipEnable 3.0 Coming Soon
I'm a big fan of ZipEnable, the utility that helps get more bang for your buck out of IIS6 compression. One of their sales guys told be that v3 should be finished by the end of the month. Hopefully this version will do a better job of compressing CommunityServer syndication feeds than v2.
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Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 - Stick a Fork In It
Mark Bower tells us that MS signed off on the VS2005 Beta 2 bits last night. The official word is they'll be on MSDN "soon"... the build fairy tells me you'll see it anytime before next Wednesday.
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Microsoft Listens - VS2005 Image Library
Microsoft has finally updated the images and animations that are packaged with Visual Studio. In this MSDN TV Episode, Aaron Brethorst tells us about the Visual Studio 2005 Image Library. Thanks Microsoft!
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RegistryPlus - Advanced Registry Manipulation with .NET
While I was working on my Remote Desktop Assistant tool, I was getting really frustrated with the Registry. I couldn't bind registry values to a WinForm control, and it was a pain to manipulate when I needed to change a dozen or more entries. I also needed to access values by collection index, and a syntax like RegistryKey.Items("UserName").Value = "SomeUsername" would have been nice too. So I created a really small and simple API to solve those problems, and it's called RegistryPlus.
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What's the deal with 'n'?
Why does it seem lately that every new project out there has a name that's prefixed by 'n'? nUnit, nTeam, nGallery, and now nContract. What gives? Is that as creative about naming as developers can get? These names make me nBored.
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What I've Been Up To Lately OR "Assembly Hell Redux"
The .NET Framework still has some serious issues to work out RE: versioning. It's not so much that the versioning scheme doesn't work... it's that Microsoft has not put forth a single document on build versioning recommendations, and how to version your assemblies to be easily identified with different .NET runtimes, so the whole .NET distribution infrastructure is extremely fractured. Anyway, over the past several months, I've experienced a problem that has taken DLL Hell to a whole new level, and so I thought I'd share it today.
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Deleting Items from a WindowsForms CheckedListBox
I've been working on a new utility today, and it required me to interact with a WindowsForms CheckedListBox control. It took me about 20 minutes to figure this out, but if you delete a SelectedItem from the source list, you MUST change the SelectedIndex before you delete the item and rebind. Otherwise you'll through an IndexOutOfRange exception with a non-existent stack trace.
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VS2005: Smells Like Beta 2
I think VS2005 Beta 2 shaping up to be released very soon (Within the next week or two). I seem to remember MS saying that you wouldn't see it before TechEd 2005, but I think they may be trying to make up for slip dates by at least having a downloadable version available by the time the techies hit the tarmac. Many of the VS guys have been relatively quiet, and the builds I've seen are starting to take on the characteristics of a final package.
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How to Become a Microsoft MVP
Congratulations to all the new MVPs out there. Welcome to the team.
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La Vida Robot Team
I came across this article about a group of illegal alien high school students from right here in Phoenix who beat MIT in a robot contest. They're amazing people, and the story is very well-written too. Please take a moment to donate to their scholarship fund... they definitely deserve it. Thanks to Chris Sells for the link.
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Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 RTMs
I just received an e-mail that as of 5:20pm, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 has gone RTM. It is available now to beta testers at http://windowsbeta.microsoft.com, and should be on Microsoft.com and MSDN "shortly".
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Site Outage Notice for LonghornBlogs.com & Others
As some of you might have already known, my company hosts it's servers at ServerBeach. They're a great hoster, and have treated us very well. They were recently bought out by a European hosting company called Peer1, and have since constructed a new datacenter. Last week, our servers were moved to the new facility, and over the past week, InterscapeUSA.com, LonghornBlogs.com and other sites have been experiencing intermittent outtages. I confirmed on Thursday that the hard drive on our webserver is failing (most likely damaged in transit), which is the reason for the current outtage.
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Gimme a break....
I'm with Wally, Paul, and Jeff. I'm definitely not joining the ranks of the Old Guard anytime soon. PS, I've been programming on some form of BASIC since the Apple IIc. Sure, VB.NET was tough to get over. Objects? Event-driven programming? But I got over it. Like thousands of other people did. And I still learn new things every day. Something tells me half of these people are just pissed off that Microsoft didn't listen to them, and now they wanna pout about it.
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Thinking Of You, Chris Sells
My roommate has a bathroom book called "The Rules: A Man's Guide to Life." by Esquire Magazine. I was sitting reading it the other day (use your imagination.... actually, please don't) and I came across Rule 390, which made me think of Chris Sells. I will give you just a second to snicker at that while I type the rule.
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Any Good WinForms HTML Edit Controls?
I'm looking at ramping up development on VisualBlogger again, and I'm still looking for a really solid WinForms HTML edit control. Anyone know of any good ones?
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New CSverter build (50301) - Fixes for Single Blogs
Lots of people have been having problems getting CSverter to work for single blog configurations. With the help of a couple people, I figured out why, and have coded a fix for it. This version also fixes some problems with the web service, and has cleaner logging. The logging and UI status updates are very complex, and are still undergoing refinement.
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Announcing CSverter 1.0 -> .Text 0.95 to CommunityServer Conversion Wizard
First off, I wanted to thank Jayson Knight for his help with this project. Without the source for his DotTextCS project, this would not have been possible. Also thanks to Divelements, whose WizardControl WinForms component made it easier for me to build this app.
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Community Server 1.0 Released!
Rob, Scott, and team have FINALLY released CommunityServer 1.0. Great job, guys! As Jayson Knight mentioned, I'm wrapping up a .Text -> CS conversion wizard. Should be finished soon, I'm having to deal with some limitations of the CS APIs.
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Server Control Talk Recap
<NoteToSelf> Next time, remember the cord to the external drive that has the VPC image of the demos.</NoteToSelf>
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Firefox NOT Most Secure Browser Ever
A new vulnerability was announced for all Mozilla-based browsers. Apparently they are vulnerable to phishing attacks just like everyone else. Looks like the rose-colored glasses are coming off. Source: Neowin
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Arrived in SanFran - Ready for VSLive
Just got into town. I'm staying at the Hotel Palomar with the rest of the speakers, and it should be a grand old time. I don't have pictures yet, but will post soon. If you wanna get a hold of me, my cell is 480-580-2726. I won't have it for a couple hours while it's charging, but leave me a message and we'll hook up.
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.NET Framework / Visual Studio Fixes Coming Next Week
According to News.com, 13 patches for Microsoft products are being released on February 8th. One fixes a "critical" flaw in Visual Studio and Office, and one is for an "important" vulnerability in the .NET Framework. I don't have any details on what these flaws are, but I guess we'll have to find out on Tuesday.
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Google Video Search
Have you seen Google's new Video Search? I heard about it the other day, so having just finished this week's episode of 24, I decided to try it out. Pretty cool, but I want video playback, not transcripts. I can see how this would be helpful though. It could be huge for students and research if it could index local newscasts as well. I wonder how they index the video, anyways... voice recognition? Hmm...
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VS2005 Beta 2 Due Late March, RC1 in September
eWeek reports that Beta 2 will NOT be done by VSLive in 2 weeks, and will be delivered with a "Go Live" license in late March/early April. RC1 will more than likely be ready by PDC2005 in Los Angeles this September. More at source.
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'rel="nofollow"' WILL NOT Stop Comment Spam
I've seen a lot of posts in the last 24 hours about Google's new rel="nofollow" attribute on hyperlinks. Both Neowin and Google claim that this method will stop comment spam. I cannot stress enough that this viewpoint is absolutely incorrect. An attribute will not stop comment spammers at all. The only thing that the attribute does is stop the Google indexer from adding google-juice to the link. That's it. The link is still there for the users on the site itself, and if you run a .Text blog, you'll still get bombarded with e-mails every time a new comment is posted.
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MSN Launches New RSS Aggregation Service
Looks to me like MSN is really starting to get the whole RSS thing. They just launched new syndication options for MyMSN. I like how it integrates with my.msn.com, so I can get to my sites without a bulky aggregator. Go check it out.. I'm gonna spend some more time playing with it.
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Click, Whirr... Poof!
My laptop is dead. Long live my laptop. Good thing a brand new Dell Inspiron 8600 is on it's way tomorrow... Now hopefully it's the IDE controller that died on my laptop... and not the hard drive. Otherwise I just lost a week's worth of work.
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Double Standards: Open Source Hits An All Time Low
As I mentioned over on my Open Letter To Microsoft the other day, it seems that many of the "Open Source" people are just "anti-Microsoft" people. If there was any doubt before, just take a look at the Open Source community's reaction to news that Firefox has security flaws. This particular quote was my favorite:
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CES 2005: Gates Keynote Observation
I was watching clips from Bill's keynote... did anyone else notice that hed made a really poor choice in chairs? Compared to the behemoth that is Conan the advent... uh, I mean O'Brien, and the fact that it was so freakin wide... it just made him look really puny. What, does Bill have a big ass? Why did he need such a wide chair? He should have picked a skinnier chair with a shorter back... would have made him look more prominent.